Growth rate?

[thinkmore]

It's been 7 1/2 weeks since we got our lovely new "subadult" checkered garter, Miami. She's doing great.. always hungry, but have to set limits I guess. Anyway, we measured her again today. She's shed once in her time here so far. She's grown at least 2 1/2 inches (after many measurements, by different people, from different pictures, and reverifying her previous length as of course we didn't trust ourselves).

So we're thinking, can adults grow this fast? We had some doubts about her really being a subadult when she arrived at 33 1/2 inches. We're starting to believe maybe she is fairly young at this point (whatever that means), even though she's over 36 inches in length. Thoughts? We have no experience with snakes this big.

[guidofatherof5]

How are you doing the measurements?
2.5 inches in a month and a half seems to be a lot of growth for a snake that size and possible age. That would be a lot of growth even for a young snake, from my experience. My experience is with T.radix, mostly.
What is she eating? How often is she fed? and how much food is being given?
Sorry for so many questions but it all relavant to your question.

[thinkmore]

We're using a program called SnakeMeasurer for the measurements. We took more than one pic and did the measuring several times, just in case.

She's eating every 6 - 7 days; by then she's ready to eat us. We weren't sure how to feed her at first, and seemed to be leaving her hungry by the time dinner was done, but now she's on weanling mice, 18 grams or so, which still seems skimpy.

Still keep wondering if we could be screwing up the measuring somehow, but not sure how.

[thinkmore]

And she's 20 grams heavier now than 6 weeks ago (was 165 grams, now 185 grams.. didn't get her weighed until 1 1/2 weeks after first measurement). Both weights on an empty tummy. Does that seem right for that kind of growth?

[drache]

I don't have as much experience with checkereds, but from what I read, their growth rate is sort of similar to easterns
my three largest garters are an eastern and two parietalis, born in 2005, so they're now 4.5 years old; I haven't measured them, but judging from the relation to the length of the tank, I'd say the parietalis are around 3' long, and the eastern a few more inches; all of them have grown over the past year, and the eastern sort of pulled ahead in size
the eastern weighs about 240g (crappy postal scale); she eats rat pups and the shoes of unwary visitors - yes, she is always hungry, but since she's had a bout with obesity, she doesn't fool me into thinking that she actually needs to get fed every week